Austerity policing, emotional labour and the boundaries of police work: an ethnography of a police force control room in England

LUMSDEN, Karen and BLACK, Alexandra
(2017).
Austerity policing, emotional labour and the boundaries of police work: an ethnography of a police force control room in England.
The British Journal of Criminology.

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Abstract

This article discusses the changing role of policing in an era of austerity from the perspective of frontline civilian police staff (call handlers and dispatchers) in a force control room (FCR). It draws on a symbolic interactionist framework and the concept of emotional labour (Hochschild 1979; 1983[2012]) in order to explore the emotional responses and strategies engaged in by staff when responding to 101 non-emergency calls and 999 emergency calls. The clash of public and police expectations, and the emotional labour expended when managing this clash, provide a valuable insight into the frontline staff perspective on the changing role of the police under austerity. Data is drawn from ethnographic fieldwork in the control room of a police force in England.